U N I T E D  N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for West Africa

Tel: +225 22-40-4440
Fax: +225 22-41-9339
e-mail: irin-wa@irin.ci


WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup 61
24 February - 2 March 2001

                
CONTENTS:

GUINEA: Human Rights Watch appeals to government
GUINEA: Food convoys reach 12,000 in four days
GUINEA: Guinea appeals for help
GUINEA: Opposition leader calls for end to Guinea-Liberia war
SIERRA LEONE: RUF to help repair Mange Bridge
SIERRA LEONE: Children released from prison
SIERRA LEONE: NGOs worried about security around Freetown  
SIERRA LEONE: Water crisis in Tonkolili District  
SIERRA LEONE: Government wants immediate sanctions against Liberia
LIBERIA: Southern IDPs begin returning home
COTE D'IVOIRE: State Department, local NGO report rampant rights abuses 
COTE D'IVOIRE: New party formed
GUINEA-BISSAU: Narrow escape for UN official
GUINEA-BISSAU: Many arrested in search for suspected Casamance rebels
MALI: Kidnapped soldiers released
GHANA: Police investigate arms haul
NIGERIA: Indonesia's Wahid speaks on Islamic law
NIGERIA: Muslim vigilantes burn truck
NIGERIA: Kano launches welfare programme
GABON: Firearms prohibition
BURKINA FASO: EU provides US $27.9 million for drinking water project
WEST AFRICA: Mixed food security outlook

GUINEA: Human Rights Watch appeals to government

Human Rights Watch (HRW) asked Guinea on Wednesday to stop "indiscriminate
cross-border attacks" into Sierra Leone aimed at destroying Revolutionary
United Front (RUF) fighters. HRW said at least 41 civilians had been
killed since the attacks started in September 2000. It also condemned the
RUF for attacking Guinean civilians and Sierra Leonean refugees, prompting
the Guinean retaliation. HRW also said Sierra Leone's government "has yet
to condemn the attacks against its own citizens".

GUINEA: Food convoys reach 12,000 in four days

Food convoys took food this week for the first time in five months to
camps and villages in the Parrot's Beak - Guinean territory that juts into
Sierra Leone - where fighting between the government and insurgents had
isolated tens of thousands of people. UN sources said about 12,000 people
received food between Monday and Thursday. UN agencies and NGOs, such as
UNHCR, WFP, IOM, GTZ, Premiere Urgence and CARITAS are participating in
various stages of the effort to provide, transport and distribute food to
displaced Guineans and Sierra Leonean refugees in the area. Each
beneficiary is being given roughly 15 kg of food.

GUINEA: Guinea appeals for help

Guinea appealed on Wednesday for international help to deal with an
insurgency in the southwest of the country and the resulting humanitarian
crisis, AFP reported on Thursday, quoting state-owned radio. The appeal
was made at a meeting between Western diplomats, officials of
international finance institutions and ministers, it said. Guinea blames
Liberia and Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels from Sierra Leone for
the insurgency.
 
GUINEA: Opposition leader calls for end to Guinea-Liberia war
  
The opposition Union pour le progres de la Guinee (UPG) has called on
presidents Lansana Conte of Guinea and Charles Taylor of Liberia to stop
sheltering each other's enemies on their territory, AFP reported on
Sunday.

"The war between Liberia and Guinea is merely a problem between the
Liberian and Guinean heads of state," UPG leader Jean-Marie Dore said at a
news conference after an extraordinary congress of his party. He said
Conte should order his army to disarm immediately members of the United
Liberation Movement (ULIMO) a Liberian group opposed to Taylor.
  
SIERRA LEONE: RUF to help repair Mange Bridge

The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) pledged at a meeting on Wednesday
with UNAMSIL Force Commander Lt-Gen Daniel Opande to deploy 100 people to
help repair craters at Mange Bridge, 64 km northeast of Freetown, UNAMSIL
reported. The Roman Catholic Mission has agreed to supply the work crews
with food for five days, UNAMSIL said.

SIERRA LEONE: Children released from prison

The last remaining children held over the past nine months at Freetown's
Pendemba Road Prison have been released, OCHA said in its situation report
of 26 January to 23 February. The 13 children were freed after months of
appeals by UN, state and non-governmental bodies. The children had been
accused of association with the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).
Meanwhile, UNICEF reported that as of 19 January, 459 children were lodged
in various centres countrywide. They include 279 former combatants.
 
SIERRA LEONE: NGOs worried about security around Freetown
	
While the overall security situation in Sierra Leone is calm, armed
robberies against NGO and UN personnel have increased since UNAMSIL
reduced its checkpoints in Freetown, OCHA reports NGOs as saying. OCHA
said that in one recent incident, three off-duty army recruits shot at a
vehicle driven by a UN civilian at an illegal checkpoint they had set up.
No one was hurt and the recruits were arrested. UNAMSIL has increased the
frequency of its patrols in Freetown to make up for the closure of the six
checkpoints, OCHA said.

SIERRA LEONE: Water crisis in Tonkolili District

UNICEF has installed six 800-gallon (3,637-litre) water storage tanks to
head off a potential waterborne epidemic at a Caritas-run camp for 4,000
IDPs in Tonkolili District, OCHA reported. Agencies have expressed fear
that a continuing shortage of safe drinking water in the entire Mile 91
area in the district could lead to an outbreak of diseases. The IDPs have
been relying increasingly on swamp water.

SIERRA LEONE: Government wants immediate sanctions against Liberia

Sierra Leone has joined Guinea's call for immediate sanctions against
Liberia, reversing an earlier decision by Freetown supporting a regional
proposal for the measure to be postponed. The state-owned Sierra Leone New
Agency, SLENA, reported the government as saying on Monday that Liberia
was gradually eroding the basis on which ECOWAS had called for a two-month
delay in the application of sanctions. Freetown accuses Monrovia of
failing to prove that it has taken steps to disengage from the
Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and of continuing to violate a UN arms
embargo and an ECOWAS moratorium on arms imports.
 
LIBERIA: Southern IDPs begin returning home

A ship chartered by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
has begun ferrying internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Liberia to their
home areas, ICRC reported in its latest news bulletin, issued this week.
It said the ship began taking on board a first batch of 288 IDPs bound for
the Greenville area in the southeast. It is scheduled to make several
trips from Monrovia to Greenville and Harper - on the border with Cote
d'Ivoire - to repatriate the some 2,600 prospective returnees registered
in and around Monrovia.
 
COTE D'IVOIRE: State Department, local NGO report rampant rights abuses

Arbitrary arrests, unlawful detentions, torture and extortion by security
forces led to a steady deterioration of the human rights situation in Cote
d'Ivoire in 2000, according to a new report by the US State Department.

The violations began during the regime of the former junta leader, General
Robert Guei, and continued under the government of President Laurent
Gbagbo, according to the 'Department of State Country Reports on Human
Rights Practices 2000'. The impunity security forces have enjoyed under
both regimes has contributed to the abuses, says the report, which covers
195 countries.

[The full report can be viewed on the following web site:  
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2000/af/index.cfm?docid=773]

Meanwhile an Ivorian human rights group, the Mouvement ivoirien des droits
de l'homme (MIDH), issued a report on 1 March detailing abuses by security
forces against supporters of the opposition Rassemblement des Republicains
(RDR) and other people on 4-5 December 2000.

COTE D'IVOIRE: New party formed

A new party, l'Union pour la democratie et la paix (UDP), was inaugurated
on Sunday in Cote d'Ivoire. It was created by former members of the
ex-ruling Parti democratique de Cote d'Ivoire (PDCI), the state daily
'Fraternité-Matin', reported on Monday.

UDP officials say they plan to support former head of state, General
Robert Guei, if he runs for president at the next election, due in five
years. Guei was forced out of office through street protests when he
proclaimed himself the winner of presidential elections in October 2000.
Several members of the new party served under Guei during his 10-month
tenure.
 
GUINEA-BISSAU: Narrow escape for UN official

A member of the UN Mission in Guinea-Bissau, Ademola Aroye, narrowly
escaped death on Monday when bullets hit his car as he drove past the home
of the minister of defence, a diplomatic source in Bissau told IRIN. The
source said the incident occurred when a soldier at the minister's
residence fired shots "in all directions" after being attacked by a
civilian with a knife.

GUINEA-BISSAU: Many arrested in search for suspected Casamance rebels

Security forces have arrested more than 60 people in Bissau amid reports
that Casamance rebels have infiltrated the town and that a large cache of
weapons had been found there, reliable sources told IRIN on Tuesday.

The sources said most of the detainees were of the Jola ethnic group,
which straddles Senegal, The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. Jolas form the
backbone of the Mouvement des forces democratiques de Casamance (MFDC),
which has been fighting for 19 years for independence for the Casamance,
an area in southern Senegal that borders on Guinea-Bissau.

A source said the arrests started on Friday after the security forces
seized a large quantity of weapons in Bsak, a Bissau neighbourhood.
 
MALI: Kidnapped soldiers released

Ten soldiers kidnapped in recent months in northern Mali were released on
24 February, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported. The soldiers were held
captive by a group led by a former army officer, Ibrahim Bahanga, a Tuareg
rebel incorporated into the army after the end of a rebellion in the
1990s.

According to AFP, the soldiers were released unconditionally. However,
Bahanga's group appealed for an end to hostilities with the central
government and more investment in development projects in the north of the
country, the news agency said. The government also called for an end to
hostilities.

A recent string of robberies, carjackings and kidnappings in the north
have been attributed to Bahanga's group.

GHANA: Police investigate arms haul

Police in Ghana are investigating two cases in which large quantities of
unlicensed arms and ammunition were seized from an arms dealer and another
businessman, the Pan African News Agency (PANA) reported on Tuesday. PANA,
quoting a police statement on Sunday, said more than 1,000 assorted guns
were retrieved from the arms dealer, while 22 small arms along with
ammunition were found at the home of the businessman.
 
NIGERIA: Indonesia's Wahid speaks on Islamic law

Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, on a three-day visit to Nigeria,
said on Tuesday the implementation of Islamic law should always reflect
local realities, AFP reported. Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim
country, has its own interpretation of the Sharia legal code, he said
during a visit to Kano, one of nine northern Nigerian states that have
adopted Sharia. Islamic law is to be instituted on 31 March in a tenth
state, Bauchi, under a bill recently signed by its governor.

NIGERIA: Muslim vigilantes burn truck

A truck conveying alcoholic drinks to the main military barracks in
Nigeria's northern city of Kano was intercepted last week and set ablaze
by Muslim vigilantes, the 'Vanguard' daily reported on Monday.

The paper said news of the incident on 20 February enraged soldiers at the
barracks who quickly organised to confront the militants, known as Hisba,
who are charged with implementing the Sharia. However, they were
restrained on the orders of the chief of army staff, Lt-Gen Victor Malu,
which averted what would have been a major religious crisis, the paper
reported.

The Hisba vigilante were also reported to have invaded the offices of the
Nigeria Union of Journalists in Kano on suspicion that alcohol was being
served there, and to have smashed car windscreens and window panes.
 
NIGERIA: Kano launches welfare programme

Kano State in northern Nigeria has launched a special welfare programme to
get beggars off the streets and provide free medical services, 'The
'Guardian' reported on Tuesday. The newspaper quoted Governor Rabiu
Kwankwaso as saying the state had set up a mobile medical team to provide
free treatment to people with hypertension, diabetes and malaria. He also
said beggars would be removed to special facilities for vocational
training and receive soft loans to do trades. Those unable to learn would
receive N2,000 (US $18) monthly for their upkeep, he said.

GABON: Firearms prohibition

Gabon's Interior Ministry has suspended the import and domestic purchase
of firearms, as part of efforts to stem a rising crime wave, AFP reported
on Thursday. The government has earlier created a special crime-busting
unit and installed video cameras at key intersections in the capital,
Libreville.
 
BURKINA FASO: EU provides US $27.9 million for drinking water project

The European Union has agreed to provide some 30 million Euros (about US
$27.9 million) for a drinking water project in Burkina Faso, the Ministry
of Finance in Ouagadougou announced on Friday. The Ziga Dam project, 35 km
north of Ouagadougou, is expected to supply all the water the capital
needs by the year 2010, the communiqué said. The total project costs about
202 million Euros. The EU loan will be used to build reservoirs, wells,
water stations and a communications system for the water distribution
network.

WEST AFRICA: Mixed food security outlook

Harvest prospects are generally favourable in coastal West Africa, but
fighting in Guinea and Sierra Leone affected farming and marketing, caused
new displacements and hampered relief programmes, the FAO notes in its
'Food crops and Shortages' report issued on 1 March.

Liberia also produced less than it could: last year's paddy production was
estimated at 144,000 mt, as against a pre-war output of 259,000 mt (1988),
according to the report, produced by the FAO's Global Information and
Early Warning System on Food and Agriculture (GIEWS).

In the Sahelian countries, seasonably dry conditions prevail. Burkina Faso
and Chad obtained below-average harvests. Production was close to average
in Mali, Mauritania and Niger, and above average in Cape Verde,
Guinea-Bissau and Senegal, the report said. A record crop was harvested in
The Gambia.

[The report can be viewed at
http://www.reliefweb.int/library/documents/2001/fao-foodcrops-01mar.pdf ]

Abidjan, 2 March 2001; 17:52 GMT


[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 22-40-4440; Fax (Admin): +225 22-40-4435; Fax
(Editorial Desk): +225-22-41-9339; e-mail: irin-wa@irin.ci]


[This item is delivered in the "africa-english" service of the UN's IRIN
humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views
of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or to
change your keywords, contact e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org or Web:
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post
this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Reposting by
commercial sites requires written IRIN permission.]

Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2000
 

distributed by
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Center for International Disaster Information
Volunteers in Technical Assistance
                                          web: www.cidi.org
                                     listserv: www.cidi.org/listsub.htm
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
West Africa                      www.cidi.org/humanitarian/irin/wafrica